Health & Lifestyle

Shady research organization linked to Covid lab leak is STILL receiving $25 million in US taxpayer money despite trying to defraud the DoD

  • EHA has been awarded at least eight grants totaling more than $32million
  • Grants awarded after the pandemic involved animal-borne pathogens in Asia 
  • READ MORE: Is this the smoking gun for the Covid lab leak?

EcoHealth Alliance, the controversial organization at the center of the Covid-19 pandemic, has continued to receive taxpayer money to study contagious animal-borne viruses in Asia and Africa. 

Records from the government’s USA Spending database show EHA has been awarded at least eight grants totaling more than $32million from the Department of Defense since 2017 for projects involving experiments with coronaviruses, Ebola and MERS.

EHA, led by British zoologist Peter Daszak, is a New York-based organization that has funneled taxpayer dollars awarded from the National Institutes of Health to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducts risky gain-of-function research.

These types of experiments see scientists intentionally alter viruses to make them more infectious or deadly – and the WIV is the lab Covid is believed to have been created and leaked from, sparking a worldwide epidemic that is estimated to have directly or indirectly killed more than 22million people. 

Despite EHA’s connection to the WIV and Covid, six of the government grants were initiated after the pandemic spread across the globe. 

Dr Peter Daszak (pictured left alongside Dr Anthony Fauci) oversees EcoHealth Alliance

Dr Peter Daszak (pictured left alongside Dr Anthony Fauci) oversees EcoHealth Alliance

Between 2015 and 2023, at least seven US entities supplied grant money from the National Institutes of Health to labs in China performing animal experiments, totaling $3,306,061

Between 2015 and 2023, at least seven US entities supplied grant money from the National Institutes of Health to labs in China performing animal experiments, totaling $3,306,061

Shi Zhengli - dubbed the 'Bat Lady' or 'Bat Woman' for her work on bat coronaviruses - investigated the possibility Covid could have emerged from her lab back in 2020, according to colleagues

Shi Zhengli – dubbed the ‘Bat Lady’ or ‘Bat Woman’ for her work on bat coronaviruses – investigated the possibility Covid could have emerged from her lab back in 2020, according to colleagues

Additionally, documents released this week appear to show Daszak and several other researchers attempting to mislead the DoD in 2018 about efforts to conduct risky experiments in Chinese labs with more relaxed safety precautions than labs in the US. 

The experiments would have seen researchers ‘engineer spike proteins’ to infect human cells that would then be ‘inserted into SARS-Covid backbones.’

The proposal, however, was not approved for grant money and the research was not carried out using US tax dollars.

In a statement Tuesday, EHA called the documents ‘ incomplete’ and said the ‘allegations are false based on misunderstanding of edits and comments on the document, and based on misleading out-of-context quotations and a lack of understanding the process by which federal grants are awarded. 

All eight DoD grants were awarded to EHA through the department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DARPA), a branch of the DoD responsible for the development of emerging technologies to be used by the military. 

One grant awarded before the pandemic ran between October 2017 and just ended in October 2023. 

It was given $6.5million and a description of the project said its goal was to understand the risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease emergence in west Asia. 

A grant from August 2019, scheduled to conclude in August 2024, was awarded $5million with a goal of reducing the threat of rift valley fever, a viral hemorrhagic fever most commonly found in domesticated animals in sub-Saharan Africa, including cattle, buffalo, sheep goats and camels. 

The virus has the ability to jump from animal to human through blood, body fluids and bites. Most people do not experience symptoms from the virus or may develop mild illness with a fever and dizziness. 

Rarer and life-threatening symptoms include excessive bleeding, eye disease and brain swelling. 

Five grants awarded after the Covid pandemic broke out, between June 2020 and December 2022, involved studying high-risk animal-borne pathogens in African and Asian countries that cause deadly febrile and hemorrhagic illnesses, such as Ebolavirus, Marburgvirus, Nipahvirus, MERS, coronaviruses and the bird flu. 

They are slated to run through December 2025. 

One grant to be carried out from July 2021 to May 2024, is to predict the impact of biothreats through data and learning, but does not mention working with any viruses or animals. 

Dangerous research like that being carried out by EHA has scientists and politicians concerned about the possibility of it sparking another pandemic. Because of these concerns, in September the US quietly shutdown a taxpayer-funded $125milloin project that saw researchers hunting down new viruses.

DEEP VZN – pronounced deep vision – was launched in October 2021 with the aim of finding and studying novel pathogens in wildlife in Asia, Africa and Latin America. 

While the research was meant to prevent human outbreaks and pandemics, critics, including Biden administration officials, were afraid it could do the opposite and voiced their fears about the potentially ‘catastrophic risks’ of virus hunting. 

The project was meant to run until 2026, but DEEP VZN was shut down without a formal public announcement in July 2023. 

USAID's DEEP VZN (pronounced deep vision) project was hunting viruses among wildlife in Asia , Africa and Latin America.

USAID’s DEEP VZN (pronounced deep vision) project was hunting viruses among wildlife in Asia , Africa and Latin America.

DEEP VZN, which stands for Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses, was launched by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in October 2021 and less than two years later, USAID officials informed members of Senate committees with jurisdiction over DEEP VZN the program was being shut down.

The premature closure of the project came abruptly and was privately relayed to Senate aides by the office of Atul Gawande, USAID’s assistant administrator for global health.

The news was buried in a congressional budget document hundreds of pages long and was discussed during interviews conducted with federal lawmakers and researchers.

At its launch, USAID said the ‘ambitious new project’ was meant to work with partner countries and the global community to ‘build better preparedness for future global health threats.’ 

The goal was to collect more than 800,000 samples over the five-year period, mostly from wildlife, to identify a subset of ‘previously unknown’ viruses that ‘pose a significant pandemic threat.’ 

Upon its termination, USAID said it would instead focus on improving laboratory capacity, disease monitoring, human resources, biosafety and security and risk communication. 


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